Iurii Samoilov is one the most exciting and versatile baritones of his generation. Although still young, he has already appeared at some of the most renowned opera houses and festivals, including the Metropolitan Opera, Opéra National de Paris, Teatro Real in Madrid, La Monnaie in Brussels, Rossini Opera Festival, Concertgebouw in Amsterdam and Alte Oper Frankfurt, working with many of the great conductors such as Antonio Pappano, Alain Altinoglu, Franz Welser-Möst, Riccardo Frizza, Tadaaki Otaka, Ivor Bolton and Pablo Heras-Casado. 

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In the coming season, he will make his company debuts at the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona (Eugene Onegin), Finnish National Opera and Ballet (Eugene Onegin), Olympia Municipal Music Theater Maria Callas in Athens (Sir Riccardo Forth in I puritani) and the Irish National Opera (Marcello in La Bohème). He will also be one of the protagonists in the 2023 New Year's Eve Concert of the Staatskapelle Dresden under conductor Franz Welser-Möst. 

 

Born in Yuzhne, a small port city in Ukraine, in 2011 Iurii received his master's degree with honors from the National Music Academy in Kyiv, where he studied vocal performance with Roman Mayboroda. During this period, he undertook postgraduate studies at the Dutch National Opera Academy and became a member of the Opera Studio Nederland in Amsterdam. His European operatic debut came in 2010 when he sang as Plutone in Monteverdi's L'Orfeo directed by Pierre Audi at the Stadsschouwburg Amsterdam and later in Rimsky-Korsakov's Invisible City of Kitezh directed by Dmitri Tvhernikov at the Dutch National Opera.

 

At the beginning of his career, he took part in numerous academies and projects for young artists such as Solti Te Kanawa Academy, Accademia Rossiniana (Pesaro), Mozart Academy (Aix-en-Provence) and the Young Singers Project (Salzburg) which served as a launching pad for his artistic growth. From 2012 to 2022 he was a member of Oper Frankfurt's ensemble where he performed some of the most iconic baritone roles like Figaro (Il barbiere di Siviglia), Papageno (Die Zauberflöte), Marcello (La Bohème), Eugene Onegin, Don Giovanni, Enrico Ashton (Lucia di Lammermoor), Ned Keene (Peter Grimes), Conte di Almaviva (Le nozze di Figaro) and Guglielmo (Così fan tutte). He also sang in two new productions which were recorded and later released on CD by Oems Classic: Danilo in Die lustige Witwe directed by Claus Guth and conducted by Joanna Malwitz and Schmierenschaushpieler in Der ferne Klang directed by Damiano Michieletto and conducted by Sebastian Weigle. 

 

Since then, he has debuted at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam singing Mahler’s Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen and at the Royal Albert Hall in London in the Jose Carreras Christmas Concert, has performed in a concert at the Alte Oper Frankfurt, was Guglielmo in a new production by Calixto Bieito of Così fan tutte at the Theater Basel and Masetto in Don Giovanni at the Dutch National Opera and Salzburger Festspiele. In 2016, he became the first singer to perform the title role in Benjamin Britten's Billy Budd, conducted by William Lacey and directed by David Alden at the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow. The following year, he debuted at the Teatro Real in Madrid in a new production of The Golden Cockerel conducted by Ivor Bolton and directed by Laurent Pelly and performed in a Gala Concert televised by ZDF with the Nordwestdeutsche Philharmonie conducted by Frank Beermann at the Gerry Weber Stadion in Halle. He was Belcore in L'elisir d'amore staged by Damiano Michieletto and conducted by Francesco Lanzillotta at the Macerata Opera Festival (recording available on www.raiplay.it) and, in 2017, sang at the Rossini Opera Festival in Le siege du Corinthe, returning there in 2020 as Slook in La Cambiale di Matrimonio and Figaro in Il barbiere di Siviglia. In 2018 he made his US debut at the Michigan Opera Theater in Detroit in a new production of Eugene Onegin. 

 

He recently debuted at the BBC Proms, marking his return to the Royal Albert Hall, in Rachmaninoff's The Bells with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales conducted by Tadaaki Otaka and at the Victoria Hall in Geneva alongside soprano Anush Hovhannisyan and the Orchestre de Chambre de Geneve conducted by Arie van Beek, in a concert titled "Le Grand Voyage" with music by Shostakovich, Ives and Copland. 

 

Other recent highlights include his company debuts at the New York Metropolitan Opera as Schaunard in Zeffirelli's legendary La Bohème, at Oslo's Den Norske Opera in the title role of Eugene Onegin and at the Opéra National de Paris as Papageno in Die Zauberflöte, his role debut as Sonora in La Fanciulla del West at Cleveland Orchestra's Mandel Opera & Humanities Festival. He was Marco in Gianni Schicchi at the Salzburger Festspiele, Don Giovanni and the Conte di Almaviva in Le nozze di Figaro at the Semperoper Dresden, Eugene Onegin at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples, again the Conte di Almaviva at the Bucharest National Opera, and sang in a concert at the Philharmonie de Paris with the Orchestre de Paris conducted by Klaus Mäkelä and recital in Brucknerhaus Linz. 

 

Iurii was a finalist at the 2017 BBC Cardiff Singer of the World competition and a recipient of the Päsel Foundation Award.